First
by ThineClementine
Summary: Yami experiences rain for the first time. May turn into a collection of 'firsts' for Yami in this new, strange world where rivers fall from the sky... Maybe yaoi if you squint.
1. Chapter 1

**What is this?** This is me at 10 pm after a sappy movie and a strange thought.

**Chapter One: Rivers from the Sky**

The rain began just after Yugi went to bed. The lights were turned out, the television clicked off, and his work set to the side of his desk for the next morning. It was an icy rain, leaving a chill that seeped under thresholds and through the cracks in window panes. Somewhere in the background, the space heater thrummed steadily in a way that usually wouldn't be noticed in the hustle bustle of day life. The clock hanging from the far wall ticked faithfully onward. Prevailing over everything else, though, pattered the rain across the roof and against the window across the room from where Yugi Motou slept in his bed, dead to the world.

Across from the bed where Yugi slept peaceful was who could be his transparent double. Almost identical in hair, build, and complexion, the differences were noticeable only to an eye searching for them. In the way they held themselves, the shape of their eyes, the slightest variations in their skin tones and the way they moved or sat or spoke. They were different, yet the same, two parts of one whole and complementary to each other.

But there were no eyes to spot their differences now, deep into a biting, dark night with a starry sky shrouded by thick clouds.

Silent and unmoving, the apparition sat weightless on the window sill, staring out into the rain barely visible to even his sharp eyes. Even so, he continued to watch fascinated as fat drops pounded against the glass.

"Yami?" A groggy voice rose from the bed. The ghostly figure turned his head to the side, just the slightest of motions that was so easy to overlook.

Sitting up slowly, the teen who had just recently been slumbering soundly propped himself up against the headboard. Yawning, he ground his knuckles into his drooping eyes in hopes of dislodging the temptation of sleep from them.

"What are you doing up so late?"

Turning to face his companion, Yami stood and approached the bed. His footsteps made no sound, his movement no stirring of air. He was nothing more than a phantom, passing between the worlds. He held no claim to this one, not without a form of his own.

"Did I wake you, Yugi? I'm sorry. You should go back to sleep."

"No, it's alright," Yugi mumbled sleepily, swinging his feet over the side of the mattress. His pale pastel blue pajamas clashed pleasantly with the black shiny leather Yami wore, just a mirror image of the clothing Yugi himself usually adorned. "Why are you up? Is something wrong?"

Yami shifted. Frowned.

"No. No, nothing's wrong. I was just..." Slowly, he turned to look back out the window. Thunder grumbled in the distance, stealing away whatever he had been planning to say. Eyebrows furrowed.

Yugi followed his gaze.

"Did the rain keep you up?" He asked curiously, seeming much more awake.

Silently, Yami drifted towards the window once more and brushed away the curtains with the back of his hand. They fluttered aside as if buffeted by a sudden breeze. A flash of lightning lit the the sky dark purple and the clouds dangerous turquoise. The rain was blinding white, falling in thick ribbons from the sky.

"Yami?"

"It's strange."

Yugi shuffled over to stand beside his counterpart and they stood together, yin and yang, at the window to watch the rain fall.

"What's strange?"

A pause. Befuddled, Yugi stole a glance at Yami's spectral face. Even though he had no physical form in the world, the light still played across his phantasmal skin, setting his features in a sharp contrast. His crimson eyes glowed ghostly silver as a sliver of moonlight broke through the mantle of clouds the sky wore so heavily. The outside world lit up, and the room seemed all the darker.

"This land," he answered after a moment, "where rivers fall from the sky. That is what is strange."

Yugi, more lost than ever, remained silent, reassured that Yami could feel his bemusement and would explain.

And explain he did.

"It's curious for me, to see this thing you call rain. Unfamiliar."

"You've seen the rain before, Yami." It had rained many times since Yugi began sharing his form with Yami. Yami was always watching, so surely he had seen...

"...Yes. I was distracted, and with good reason. I never stopped to watch and be in wonder." A sigh. "And it is strange," he stated with an alarming amount of finality.

Yugi tilted his head up towards his yami.

"Strange?"

Smiling vaguely, almost not a smile at all, the Pharaoh returned the gaze with far off eyes. What Yugi thought was strange was how his eyes seemed the most solid part of him, always so real and full of light and life, though his own body had died many millennium ago.

"In my country..." Yugi felt a shock go up his spine at the longing in that voice, "...it did not rain. Living was the good Nile, our source of water and prosperity and life. I went my entire life without knowing what the rain was, because the rain did not exist in my country but rarely. My country..." He trailed off, eyes sliding back towards the window. Lightning reached towards the land. The sky roared.

Concerned, Yugi shifted nearer his closest friend when he felt a pulse of shrouded longing, almost sorrow, escape through their link. No matter how Yami tried to hide his pain, though, Yugi could always feel it. Always.

"Yami..."

What could he say, Yugi wondered, to comfort this gallant spirit, separated from his homeland for so many thousands of years, plunged into a strange world he didn't understand? In a land he was never meant to see, a time he was never meant to see...

"My country," Yami continued as if Yugi hadn't spoken, "never heard thunder, never saw lightning. And I never heard nor saw. And now I am here, experiencing these strange, unnatural things. If I had lived a normal life, I never would have..."

Yugi felt a sharp pain in his heart and a wave of despair engulfed him. Did Yami wish he _had_ lived a normal life? But if Yami had lived a normal life, he never would have...!

"If I have lived a normal life," Yami's deep tone rumbled, voicing Yugi's thoughts perfectly, and Yugi knew he was caught. In the same way Yami could hide nothing from him, Yugi could hide nothing from Yami. Crimson eyes lifted, and Yugi's entire being and soul froze, not able to complete the thought. Not wanting to.

The two stood, eyes locked, caught in a battle between the shadows and the light. A clash that was constant in the universe, opposing and yet completing at the same time. They clashed in merely being, in existing together as the purest of pure contraries to the other. The mere fact that they _were_ set that ever struggling and balancing into motion, unable to continue without the other.

And they stood, merely being, staring and unmoving like statues in that one moment. And for a moment, Yugi was afraid, an irrational fear that Yami was unhappy and that Yugi's friendship would never be enough to replace the love he had held and still held for his homeland and birth place of Egypt, the place where he had ruled and loved his people and paid the ultimate price to save them all. He was afraid...

And then, Yami smiled.

"If I had lived a normal life, Yugi..." He lifted a single un-matter hand and brushed the back of his knuckles, as solid as anything, over Yugi's cheek, comforting like one would a small child after a fiendish nightmare. "Then I would never have met you."

The agony, that fear, drained from Yugi's chest like sickness from the wound. Yugi reached out and silently pulled the ancient Pharaoh into a hug and he couldn't stop his trembling, from joy and from grief, because some small part of Yami was in pain. Would always be in pain. And he felt helpless, because there was nothing he could do to heal that pain.

"Yami?"

"Hn?"

"I'm sorry."

Understanding passed between the two.

"I know, hikari. And it's alright."

And that was enough. No more words were needed, not for the two, because they were connected and balanced in the same way the sun balanced the moon or life balanced death. The two stood like that for a long moment before Yugi glanced up with sparkling eyes, a grin spreading on his face in childlike deviousness.

"Now come on. There's more to rain than just seeing it."

Grabbing the spirit by his wrist, Yugi towed a confused Yami down the stairs to the game shop and then out the front door. Standing under the porch, he breathed out a cloud of steam into the air and smiled into the bleak, polar darkness that bit raw at his nose. He opened the link that connected their souls to his body. And invited.

Confused, Yami returned to their mind corridor, where Yugi stood waiting between their two soul rooms, so close and yet still separate as two definite life forms.

"Yugi, what are you---?"

"Don't ask questions, Yami. You'll see. Now come on."

Taking his hand, Yugi then did something neither of them had ever done or tried. Before then, neither had believed it possible. Merging their two souls as closely as they could without completely abandoning themselves and becoming one being all together, the two returned to his body and the physical world.

As one, they stepped out into the rain, one body controlled by two souls acting in flawless, thoughtless tandem.

And for the first time, they shared the world. In the past, they had always switched back and forth between control, Yugi and then Yami, Yami and then Yugi, never sharing the body that they both resided in.

Until now. The two shared one skin as water slid down the back of Yugi's pajamas, shared a shiver as the downpour plastered their hair to the back of their neck. Shocked by the unfamiliar sensation, Yami laughed, a surprised, breathless laugh, and Yugi laughed with him. The voice that rose from their shared physical chest was unreal, ethereal, deep and light, joyous and sorrowful, the world wrapped into one moment.

Glowing violet eyes shining with a deep crimson lifted skyward and squinted. Arms lifted high, hands splayed upwards, as if to take flight, or maybe even to swim weightless through the torrent until they reached the hiding stars above.

Still laughing, they as one wiggled their toes in the sloshing, glacial puddles and shuddered as cotton stuck to their skin. Above, the brief flaunt of moonlight slid behind the cloud cover and, in the darkness that followed, shadow and light danced together, a single being that laughed to shame the stars.

And Yami experienced rain for the first time.

**Author's Note:** Real short as I have to go. Came from an idea when I wondered what Yami must think of this new place Japan, which is so different from Egypt. What mysteries has he been facing?

Now onward with a fact that I've already been called by a Reviewer before I could update.

I am aware it rains in Egypt. I've been told, though, it is very rare, maybe once every hundred years? Or so the Discovery Channel told me. Or perhaps I'm remembering wrong, but either way, I based this story on the fact that (I believe) it rains only once in a century/very rarely in Egypt, and Yami didn't live through any moments of rain. Thus, it was not something he readily acknowledged, or even knew.

And I know, I know, this is sorta sappy at some point. I'm sorry. I told myself I wouldn't do this ever again. I mean, sure, I have tons of ideas that could only be oneshots or ficlets, but I've got big stories to be working on! Else I face the consequences! And the sappiness is embarrassing when I read it later on and realize I typed it up... Well, ignore me and my ranting. I'm done now, really. Probably will be updating other "chapters" of other drabbles, when my next idea hits. R&R if you liked it, please, or even if you didn't.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary:** Yami struggles to understand cold days and the changing leaves.

**Rating:** PG

**DISCLAIMER:** Guess who owns nothing?

**Chapter Two: Just Life**

That first cold rain of the season brought many changes. Autumn, carried in on wings of frost, set quickly over the town and coats became mandatory even on the routine trip out to grab the newspaper off the doorstep. The days became progressively chillier and the trees fell to slumbering with leaves in warm shades belying the weather. The days passed in constant change.

It was on one such day that this change reached our protagonists.

Yugi didn't really know what had spurred him to go on a walk on such a hellishly cold day. Perhaps it was that deceptive sunshine, warm across his face, that had awakened him that morning. From the other side of the glass, it beckoned, golden and just so irresistible.

He should have known when Grandpa had called for him to remember his coat. But no, absently he had slipped on the thick material and slipped outside.

Deceived again, the warmth of the coat, having been hung before the heater, lasted him only until he had reached the end of the block. It abandoned him, and the wind stole away any warmth that vulpine sun could give.

He soldiered on until he had reached the park. It was a day for deception, or so it would seem. The moment he stepped past the gates, he was no longer in the city. Trees rose on all sides, orange and scarlet and gold (like that damnable sunlight, he would sulk later on). For a moment, he could pretend that all that laid beyond the tree cover was sky and forest. Shivering, he stubbornly continued his stroll down the abandoned path. Obviously, the other residents of Domino were wiser than he.

Even so, the walk warmed him and, snuggled into his coat, the day became pleasant.

Yami, sensing his mood, appeared in astral form beside him, dressed in his usual sleeveless clothing and feeling nothing alike to cold.

Yugi smiled as Yami took in their surroundings with bewilderment. His chuckle sent clouds of steam out into the air, drawing Yami's eye. Silent, the Pharaoh watched for a long minute, just observing Yugi as he breathed his long, patient breaths. Ice bit at the tip of his nose.

"What is it, Yami?" Yugi asked finally, smiling because he already knew the answer.

"I am... trying to comprehend. Why is your breath smoking?"

Yugi tilted his head at Yami, a silent invitation. Come find out, he said without saying.

Nodding, Yami returned into their body and they both shifted, Yugi submitting to the pressure of Yami's soul and letting it slide past. And then he felt no more cold, but neither did he indulge in warmth. Slipping out to float (which could be quite unnerving at times) at Yami's elbow, he watched with a smile as Yami shivering quite suddenly. Violently.

"Ah!" He exclaimed, obviously in surprise. Hurried, he pulled the coat tighter around his shoulders and breathed out sharply. His breath puffed back into his face, and he blinked wildly at the cold wind threatened to dry his eyes.

"Do you understand now, Yami?" Yugi asked smugly.

"By the gods!" Yami exclaimed instead of answering, his nose and cheeks pink with autumn's touch.

Yugi couldn't help it. He laughed, a ghostly laugh that came from nonexistent lungs that felt no need to breathe. Yami glared, looking quite pathetic huddled against the wind and obviously miserable.

"Why would anyone want to live in this horrible land?" Yugi laughed harder. "Devoid of warmth, breaths freezing in my chest," laughter grew louder, "and this coat does nothing to help! How can you walk in this horrible weather?"

"Well, the walking kept me warm," Yugi replied, still giggling.

Huffing a great, voluminous cloud, Yami set at a brisk pace, hunched nearly double over as if to hide from the frigid air. Smiling wordlessly, Yugi skimmed along beside him, watching as his muscles slowly loosened and his head lifted, and he finally began to take in his surroundings when warmth returned.

He stopped. Stared. As he examined the trees, Yugi examined him.

"These are...?"

"Trees."

"Ah. Wood." Contemplative silence. Yugi could feel his rushing thoughts. Curious, he listened in and saw precious memories of chairs and couches and chests and other wooden, gilded treasures of Egypt. He vaguely recalled that wood was considered as valuable as gold in ancient Egypt due to their lack of trees. That explained the wonder he could feel tinging this thoughts.

"I have seen these, through your eyes. But... were they not green?"

Gentle patience.

"Yes, they were. But in the autumn, the leaves change colors like this."

Slowly, Yami approached the base of a nearby maple and delicately picked up a bright leaf from the prickly, dead grass. He turned it over and over in his hands, careful not to crinkle it.

"Why do the... leaves... change color?"

That question took a bit longer.

"Well... um... The leaves change colors because they're sleeping." Or something like that.

He got the most unusual look from Yami.

"And why are the leaves sleeping?" Obvious disbelief.

"Well, that's just how it is. They grow green during the spring and summer, fall dormant in the autumn, and then fall off and die in the winter."

That drew instant attention.

"They are alive?" With a new reverence, Yami once again began examining the leaf he had found.

"Not in the way you and me are, but... yeah."

"And this one..." he smoothed the leaf with one hand, delicately, as if brushing back the bangs from a child's forehead, "is dead?"

He knew the answer the moment he asked. Surprised, Yugi watched as Yami looked down at the leaves scattered all around his feet with some amount of trepidation. He felt the question coming before it was voiced. It ached in his chest before it was voiced.

"Why do they die when they are most beautiful?"

Yugi slid closer to Yami and placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. It landed quite solid there where it would have passed through any other.

"That's just how it is."

Yami didn't say anything, didn't let go of that leaf.

"But don't worry." Yugi continued. "Come spring, they'll grow back green again. Then, next fall, they'll change colors and fall, and it will all repeat. It's just life, I guess."

That Yami seemed to understand. The leaf fluttered back to the ground, flipping and fluttering into a pile of its comrades.

"Just life," Yami repeated in a voice that made Yugi frown. It was empty, tired, like a candle that had been blown out.

The two stood silently in a sea of bloody reds and fiery hues, staring around at the silent trees. A stiff breeze passed, sending whispers through the nearly barren branches. Like a rain, leaves cascaded down about them, swirling and dancing with the wind like things alive. Then they fell motionless once more on the grass, lifeless and slumbering, waiting to return to the earth and then return in the spring, reincarnated. Absently, Yami shivered and rubbed his arms for warmth, though he was perfectly snug within his coat.

"Come on," Yugi said softly, tugging at Yami's sleeve. Obediently, he followed. "Let's go get you some hot chocolate."

Curiosity piqued. Yugi smiled and tried not to sigh in relief. The emptiness was gone, and fire burned again in his yami's eyes.

"Hot chocolate?"

A chuckle as Yugi returned to their body.

"You'll see."

**Author's Note:**

This is has been taking up space in my word document for a while and I decided to post it. I like it a bit more than the first, which I feel wasn't as aptly written as could have been. I'm thinking of going back and editing a bit, though I don't feel I could put myself back into the mindset I was in while writing it. Perhaps I'll leave it be instead of royally screwing it over...

This thought came to be autumn of last year while I was morning the absence of a colorful fall. Here, in my place of residence, autumns are brown and tawny and dead. The air is not crisp, but unpleasant. Humidly cool. As I was mourning the fact that I might never see red or orange or gold leaves, I thought of this. It ended up a bit sad, perhaps nostalgic describing it better. I hope you enjoy and review with your thoughts.


	3. Chapter 3

Swooooosh. A blast of cold air. Footsteps. Fwooooo-KCHK! Stifling heat. Swoooooosh. A gaggle of giggling teens passed by. Fwoooooo-KCHK!

From his vantage point hovering at Yami's shoulder, Yugi stifled a sigh.

"Yami," he said, gently catching his other half's attention. "We've been standing here for no less than ten minutes."

"Yes."

A pause.

"Why?"

Yami had yet to look away from the spectacle that had so fascinated him upon their arrival.

"I am trying to understand," was all he said. Yugi really did sigh and glanced at the corporeal watch on Yami's wrist, knowing that the mimicked one on his own spiritual self would be incorrect.

School was out for the weekend and Jonouchi, Honda, and Anzu had invited Yugi (and of course Yami) to come out to eat at the new burger place down by the arcade. Yugi had been feeling the results of a late night the day before studying for a geometry test and had so let Yami take control and walk them... him... well, to walk their shared body to the restaurant.

Then Yami had gotten sidetracked.

Eyes sharp, Yami watched in fascination from his spot across the street as the automatic glass doors slid open in the face of a couple holding hands. If he had been a dog, his ears would have been pricked and pushed forward. Yugi stifled a giggle this time as Yami grew tense with anticipation. Finally, the doors closed and became inanimate once more. Yami relaxed.

Yugi, knowing that this could go on for another ten minutes, finally decided to get down to business.

"And just what are you trying to understand?"

Yami, leaning back against the side of an apartment building, finally glanced over at Yugi. The streets weren't very crowded, so they weren't afraid to speak, albeit quietly. Yami gestured with his hand at the doors as if they were sorcerous in nature.

"The doors?"

Yami nodded, back on his vigil. "I'm trying to understand," here he paused as they opened, regurgitated a group of grade schoolers, and then closed, "how it is they open and close. Are they possessed?"

Yugi bit his cheek to suppress a smile.

"No."

"Spelled by a sorcerer?"

"There aren't any sorcerers in Japan, Yami. At least, not acting on the public level."

Silence. Yugi fidgeted and checked Yami's watch again. They were supposed to be inside seven minutes ago.

"Hey, Yami," Yugi said. "Why don't you test them out, then?" Yami's head whipped up. "They're not dangerous," Yugi placated. "I've used them tons of times."

Straightening away from the wall, Yami considered the doors for a long moment before glancing warily up at Yugi.

"And how would I go about 'testing them out'?"

"Um, you walk at them."

Yugi could have asked him to stick his hand in a fire, by the look Yami gave him. Yugi held his breath and counted to ten, knowing that laughing in his yami's face would only deter him from trying, or even convince him that Yugi was somehow pulling his leg.

"Walk at them? And if they do not open?" Yami asked.

"They will."

"But what if-?"

"They're fine, Yami. If you want, I can take over and show you."

The Look Yami was giving him simply doubled in intensity.

"Definitely not! I will do it. Remain behind me." And with that, Yami threw back his shoulders, lifted his head, and strode for the automatic doors.

For a moment, Yugi felt like he was in a different time. He could almost imagine Yami as he had once been; a child-king, a prince-god, bold and regal and striding into battle with red eyes burning like the sun his people so loved and revered.

It would have been much more striking if Yami hadn't been facing down a pair of automatic doors. Smiling and shaking his head in good humored resignation, Yugi followed until he hung behind Yami's shoulder.

As they approached, Yami's shoulders became tenser and tenser, and Yugi was convinced he was preparing to turn away and beat a retreat just before his foot hit the sensor pad and the doors sprung apart. Yami jolted slightly, faltering in his step, before cautiously continuing forward. His red eyes remained glued to the doors, wary for any signs of betrayal as he passed between them. Smiling so hard his metaphorical cheeks hurt, Yugi floated after him, and it was only once the doors had closed (an act Yami watched very, very closely) that he let out a stifled laugh. With as much dignity as he could manage, Yami ignored his giggling counterpart and made for the booth from which Jonouchi was waving.

They never mentioned the moment again, though Yugi did notice that Yami continued to closely watch automatic doors whenever he had to pass through them.

**Author's note: **Just a sort of silly chapter I thought up one day while going to the grocery market. I had forgotten it was sitting on my computer and stumbled upon it this morning. I thought I'd posting it for all you dearies who have been waiting for so long without an update. Hope you enjoy!


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